'Beep'- the Sound of Erasure

‘Beep’- the Sound of Erasure: The Censored Text as an Aesthetic Device Ishani Dey Abstract This paper is invested in exploring the sensory affect that is created through censorship. It is invested in unravelling the complex interaction between the films of Anurag Kashyap and the institution of censorship, the sensibilities of which are capitalized and appropriated into the aesthetic effect of the film. It also looks at how such a deployment constructs the cult of a transgressive auteur. I argue that the deafening ‘beep’ that screams of the otherwise silencing practices of censorship is what guides the way to unraveling the subversion of censorship in the filmic text. Taking cue from Žižek’s Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006) which looks at cinema as the ultimate pervert art, telling us how to desire, this paper asserts that censorship doesn’t erase the profane, instead it points to its very utterance. I argue how Kashyap’s films’ profilmic text becomes the site of censorship standing out as material evidence to its very censoring. The ‘beeped’ or censored word becomes a provocation focusing attention onto itself by mobilizing its unspeakability through marketing the product as “controversial”. I posit that Anurag Kashyap capitalizes on this recognition. I look at the force of publicity that is created by censorship in Kashyap’s public discourse on censorship, 87 Volume 3. Issue 1. 2015 URL: http://subversions.tiss.edu/ in his negotiations with the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) from before the planned commercial release of his first directorial venture Paanch to his ongoing battle with the CBFC over refusing to use the court mandated no smoking warning in ‘Ugly’ (2014)1. Keywords: Kashyap, Auteur, Censorship, Affect, Cult, CBFC. Introduction There were a great many censor problems that the film encountered. Thus, the maker had to go through the entire process of ‘beeping’ the film where certain words weren’t even allowed to be voiced. (Paanch Goes Beep, 2004) The above excerpt from a newspaper clipping is part of a statement released by Tejaswani Kolapure the lead actress of Paanch, Anurag Kashyap’s directorial debut that never saw the light of theatre projectors. Having generated heavy online traffic in discussions over the botched release, the reason for its non-release is drowned in the cacophony surrounding its three year long negotiations with the censors. The process of ‘beeping’ that Kolapure refers to is of intrigue. The deafening beep that screams of the otherwise silencing practices of censorship is what guides the way to unraveling the subversion of censorship in the filmic text. Slavoj Žižek in the The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006) claims that, “Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire”, my assertion here is that censorship doesn’t erase the profane, instead it points to its very utterance. The profilmic text as a site of censorship also stands as material evidence to its very censoring. For the ‘beeped’ or censored 1 Yet to be commercially released but has already made its way to Cannes in Directors Fortnight in 2013 and is set to open the New York Indian Film Festival in May 2014. 88 Volume 3. Issue 1. 2015 URL: http://subversions.tiss.edu/ word becomes a provocation, focusing attention onto itself. In this paper I look at censorship as the auteur’s interaction with the text and as evidence of the auteur’s understanding of the sensibilities of the censors. This very knowledge as well as the auteur’s understanding of the effect of the censored text is used to incite sensorial affect through its aesthetic deployment, which through the ensuing argument we will find is critical to forming his particular Camp. I argue that the profane is consciously woven into the text to be censored so as to make obvious its very presence. Later I will also look at the purpose that such a deployment fulfills in sowing the seeds of the cult of a transgressive auteur. Following Kashyap’s journey2 in the Hindi film industry is much like tracing the quintessential heroes’ journey—–an outsider making his way through the “bullies” (Juneja, 2007) of the industry, only to firmly plant himself within their midst in two short decades to emerge as not just an auteur, but an entrepreneur fostering young directors under his two production houses and numerous joint ventures. This paper has been divided into sections bringing to the fore moments that have been critical to the construction of the auteur’s transgressive aura. The first section is dedicated to his first public encounters with the censor board where I attempt to draw out the charm of the censored beep in its appropriation by the auteur. The next section delves into the significance of Kashyap’s Camp identity. In the Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema Lalitha Gopalan points to the mobilizing of a fan following of auteuristic 2 An undergraduate awkward teenager who never spoke to girls, Kashyap was introduced to the world of performance through the theatre group Jana Natya Manch and ended up watching 55 films in ten days at the International Film Festival of India (in ’93) only to find himself in Bombay within five months nursing starry eyed dreams of making movies. Working on the essential heroes’ journey, he is faced with one obstacle after another— his first film (Paanch 2003) falls into trouble with the censors and then finds itself without a producer destined to lurch in pirate circles, his next venture (Black Friday 2007) too is stopped short of its release only to struggle against the censors for another ten years, his next film is shelved as the lead backs out six days before shooting (Gulaal 2009), his next release finds critical acclaim but bombs at the box office, the film after this fails to leave a mark amongst the critics or the box office (Return of Hanuman 2007) and finally a tryst with substance abuse and one broken marriage later, he finds success in his fifth release (Dev D 2009) and he never looks back. 89 Volume 3. Issue 1. 2015 URL: http://subversions.tiss.edu/ filmmakers like Ketan Mehta and Ram Gopal Verma who not unlike independent filmmakers gain currency by controlling their productions to create a distinctive style. She sees their films as being able to read the spectators’ desires as much as their ability to read into their creations by keeping in mind the cinephiliac tendency to scrutinize and deploy a system of signs beyond the narrative. She sees this as creating a potential space for Camp and cult followings which can also tell us how the Kashyap Camp is created and mobilized. The section after this is dedicated to his dialogue with censorship, at first through the affective potency of the censored beep in Paanch (unreleased) and later by reading No Smoking (2007) as reactive to the agency of censorship. In a brief textual reading of sequences from both films I notice a shift in Kashyap’s engagement with the censors where in the latter I witness a more textured engagement than the former, as he steps onto the mantle of the censors. This layering is reflected in Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) where again I witness a thematic continuum of the same. From here I move onto reading his author function as it moves beyond his filmic text and furthers his performance of the transgressive auteur in public discourse. The last section examines the figure of the bootlegging auteur and the potential of this figure in forming cult fandom. The charm of the ‘beep’ I begin this inquiry by studying the inception of the auteur’s discourse with the censor board that begins with the awaited release of his directorial debut Paanch. This, as we will see, has implications on not just his particular body of work but also textures our understanding of the state’s relationship with its citizenry, for 90 Volume 3. Issue 1. 2015 URL: http://subversions.tiss.edu/ Examining Hindi filmmakers’ discourses about censorship complicates our understanding of the institution of state censorship and reveals how its concerns move beyond the restriction of expression or the regulation of content and become centrally involved with the production of citizenship, class identity, and subjectivity in a postcolonial setting. (Ganti, 2009:90) In her ethnographic study of the Hindi film industry, Tejaswini Ganti argues that there is an internal self-censoring amongst the Bombay film fraternity that can be traced back to a developmentalist ideology, which informs state policy and molds subjectivities in postcolonial India. Characterizing such a condition she contends that there is an internalized sense of backwardness or underdevelopment when compared to the west that is evident in the industry’s self-representation as well as representations of its audience. Filmmakers view the masses as passive, easily influenced consumers of media, attributing a hypodermic effect to media and thus sanction censorship as a necessity in order to reign in the all-powerful forces of media. Their engagement with censorship is further complicated in the Bombay film fraternity’s strive towards self-censoring. Since the 1930s in an attempt to sanitize their image and distance themselves from the industry’s historic links with nefarious elements of society there has been a drive among filmmakers to create an image of legitimacy for the industry which reflects “the Bombay film industry’s desire for respectability and acceptance within Indian middle-class and elite social spheres”. As a result, there emerged themes, that in keeping with the strive for propriety, the Hindi cinema did not want to talk about.

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